The present invention relates generally to air dryer systems, and particularly wherein the air dryer units are arranged in multiples of two. The problem of moisture in compressed air systems is well-known. It is known, for example that the reason that compressed air contains a great deal of moisture is that the process of compressing the air concentrates the same amount of moisture in a much smaller volume, thus raising the relative humidity of the compressed air.
For example, with such air dryers, three, four, or five such pairs or units of air dryers may be “modular” and used a group for purposes of accumulating large amounts of compressed air for use in paint spraying, compressed air tool use, tire inflation, and other applications.
The main advantage of the invention is a simplified mounting system for installing and removing the units. This system is a great improvement over a known prior method. According to the prior art, when a plurality of air dryer units are used as a group or arranged to work together, the installation was very complex. The method required piping the intake and outlet manifolds separately with individual pieces of pipe, and its accompanying problems. For example, each piece of pipe had to be cut to length, and installed using a large number of individual components.
Thus, the so called “black pipe” required each piece to be cut to length before installing. Then a tee was attached, after installing the tee to the desired length. Since there were right-angled pieces needed, this required a union for each length of pipe. Additionally, for each pair of prior art dryer units, among which there are a customary three, four, or five placed in series, the units must be mounted, almost always on a wall.
This was done using a plurality of rearwardly and upwardly extending brackets, mounting the brackets first to each pair of dryer units and then to the wall. This created additional alignment problems, which the present invention overcomes.
Thus, there were required for each of the moist air inlets, a tee, two nipples and a union for each pair of air dryers, and an end plug for the last tee. This arrangement was repeated for the dry air outlets. Thus, in an array of five pairs of dryers, there would be required ten tees, ten unions, two end caps, and twenty nipples, plus the usual array of “Teflon” tapes for each nipple end to insure that the joints were air-tight.
The present invention also overcomes these installation problems and shortcomings by utilizing one standard bracket for each pair of dryers, with each bracket having a downwardly directed vertical flange which easily slides within a pre-sized slot in a mounting strip having openings or slots just wider than the vertical flange. Accordingly, it is only necessary to place the units in their approximate positions with the flanges in the slots. Then, instead of cutting each piece of black pipe or the like to a selected, most likely different, length, the brackets predispose the matched pair of dryer units to be positioned such that they register immediately with a series of T-bolts disposed in the plenum of the manifold. The T-bolts are accordingly evenly spaced along the manifolds.
Accordingly, the manifold consists of two selected length rectangular tube portions, preferably of aluminum, and each selected length having T-bolts intended to register with the inlet and outlet openings on the dryer, and each T-bolt being fitted with two O-rings for example. Accordingly, it is only necessary first to have the mounting strip placed on the wall, then have the dryer units placed in the slots in the mounting strip which allows a certain limited amount of end play, if any, to be taken up. Then, the final arrangement is easily accomplished merely by fastening the T-bolts in place in the manifold.
Such a mounting system, for example, in the case of using three dryers, has cut the installlation time from four hours to a mere thirty minutes, for example. Another example of mounting five drying units gave a capacity of 400 cubic feet per minute of almost totally dry air.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved mounting system for a series of air dryers.
Another object of the invention is to provide a series of air dryers, which contain inlet and outlet openings that match the T-bolts used on the associated manifold.
A further object is to provide a simplified mounting strip for the dryer units which interfits with several vertical flanges, thus greatly simplifying assembly.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a plenum with a series of T-bolt connections, each one designed to enter the plenum at a desired spacing, thus allowing the plenum to register and form a manifold with the moist air or dry air ports in one part or another of the dryer base.
Another object is to provide a manifold having a plurality of inlets thereon, with each inlet being adapted to be received by a dryer unit, which in turn holds two drying canisters, each of which alternately allows moist air to enter and another which allows dry air to exit the unit.
A still further object is to provide a simplified manifold and bracket system.
A further object of the invention is to provide a system wherein all essential elements of the air dryers are positioned so as to be readily available for maintenance, replacement, and/or repair.
Another object of the invention is to provide a manifolding system which includes a plenum and suitable washers, such as O-rings, which are used in a simplified but effective assembly.
A further object of the invention is to provide several air dryer unit each containing twin canisters in which, when the first canister of the dryer unit is serving to absorb moisture from incoming air, the other canister uses a minor portion of that air to regenerate the desiccant contained in the second canister, and with the first and second canisters having their operations reversed in the next cycle.